When Life's A Struggle Quotes & Sayings

If the roar of a wave crashes beyond your campsite, you might call that adventure. When coyotes howl outside your tent--that may be adventure. While you're sweating like a horse in a climb over a 12,000 foot pass, that's adventure. When a howling headwind presses your lips against your teeth, you're facing a mighty adventure. If you're pushing through a howling rainstorm, you're soaked in adventure. But that's not what makes an adventure. It's your willingness to struggle through it, to present yourself at the doorstep of Nature. That creates the experience. No more greater joy can come from life than to live inside the 'moment' of an adventure. It may be a momentary 'high', a stranger that changes your life, an animal that delights you or frightens you, a struggle where you triumphed, or even failed, yet you braved the challenge. Those moments present you uncommon experiences that give your life eternal expectation. That's adventure! — Frosty Wooldridge

I can remember when
delusions of grandeur
entailed wanting to
be a rock star, movie star,
a millionaire; to make it
as a writer
now it seems that it's
to want to earn a
decent living — Phil Volatile

Dr. Deveaux stopped and looked at me hard. He leaned in and whispered, 'The rest is all bullshit, Miss Drake. It's as simple as that. Your purpose here in life is to discern the real thing from the bullshit, and then to choose the non-bullshit. Think of the opportunity that God has given you to study as the means by which to attain your own personal bullshit detector. Sometimes that will be particularly difficult, because those who proclaim to know the truth, well intentioned or not, are spewing the most bullshit. But you will know when you have been properly ravished. And then you'll see, how the entire world is eyeball deep in it and that we choose it, and that we choose it every day. But the good news is that, although we struggle with it, there is a way out. Yes, there is a very worthy antidote and option to all the bullshit. — Carolyn Weber

My life has been full of struggles - coming from a troubled home, moving out when I was fifteen, ending up homeless by eighteen. The one thing I always knew was being jaded and bitter was equal to letting life win. — Jewel

No one escapes suffering. Everyone goes through tough times. Suffering is a part of our human condition and cannot be avoided. Setbacks, failures, pain, suffering, and hardships are all a part of life, but whether we are able to find peace within the storm depends on our resilience and perseverance. Whenever one of our children tells us that they don't want to fail at something, we remind them that there will be times in their life when they will fail, but it's how they come through it that matters. If we choose to focus on the negative, the failure itself, the darkness will oppress and consume us. Eventually it will destroy a person. We need to embrace the fact that we're human and our lives will be filled with suffering and hardship, but we have the ultimate hope and victory in Our Lord. — Karen Santorum

When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny. — W.B.Yeats

Others as well had come to see them as more than mere eccentrics. Life on the Outer Banks was harsh. Making ends meet was a constant struggle. Hard workers were greatly admired and in the words of John T. Daniels, the Wrights were "two of the workingest boys" ever seen, "and when they worked, they worked. . . . They had their whole heart and soul in what they were doing. — David McCullough

Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death. — Whittaker Chambers

In my life I have had to work through problems of stigmatization and prejudice. When I discovered the power of the arts to express my pains and joys, it became clear to me that there would be no other way to work through the demons except to fully embrace the process of creation. The work was not personal therapy but had a connection to other peoples' realities. As I grow older and more mature, it becomes clearer to me that personal struggles and conflicts are connected with universal struggles and conflicts. It is this knowledge, ironically, that gives me the freedom to experiment in my work — Reza Abdoh

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf, And the world makes you King for a day, Then go to the mirror and look at yourself, And see what that guy has to say. For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife, Whose judgement upon you must pass. The feller whose verdict counts most in your life Is the guy staring back from the glass. He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest, For he's with you clear up to the end, And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test If the guy in the glass is your friend. You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum, And think you're a wonderful guy, But the man in the glass says you're only a bum If you can't look him straight in the eye. You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years, And get pats on the back as you pass, But your final reward will be heartaches and tears If you've cheated the guy in the glass. Dale Wimbrow — Shawn Jones

Treatments worked well enough for us to get by. Most people lived into old age, but the medication, like everything else, has never been free. Life was a privilege, not a right, apparently. Something you had to struggle for when you were unlucky enough to be born at the intersection of poverty and bad genes. — Jacqueline Koyanagi

When we do the hard stuff for the first 20 years we will have an easier life for the 60, but if we take it easy for the first 20 then we will live a life of struggle later on. — N.N. Porchezhiyan

Bette Davis lived long enough to hear the Kim Carnes song, 'Bette Davis Eyes'. The lyrics to that song were not very interesting. But the fact of the song was the proof of an acknowledgement that in the twentieth century we lived through an age of immense romantic personalities larger than life, yet models for it, too - for good or ill. Like twin moons, promising a struggle and an embrace, the Davis eyes would survive her - and us. Kim Carnes has hardly had a consistent career, but that one song - sluggish yet surging, druggy and dreamy - became an instant classic. It's like the sigh of the islanders when they behold their Kong. And I suspect it made the real eyes smile, whatever else was on their mind. — David Thomson

In Berkeley and San Francisco, the revolution didn't seem to far away. A lot of white radicals, hippies, Chicanos, Blacks, and Asians were ready to get down. But i hadn't forgotten the hard hats and the red necks and the bible belt and the so called middle amerikans who had elected Nixon. I couldn't imagine how the "new left" was talking to those people, much less organizing and changing their minds. I decided the only way i would come up with answers was to on keep studying and struggling. I didn't know how half of what i was studying would fit in but i figured it would all come in handy some day. I read about guerrilla warfare and clandestine struggle without having the faintest idea that one day i would go underground. It's kind of funny when i think about it because reading that stuff had probably saved my life a million times. — Assata Shakur

The living are always trying to find the shortcuts to happiness in life. But look what happens when someone achieves premature success: they bloom too early and spend the rest of their lives dying....Success without struggle warps a person. — Susan Wells Bennett

To struggle when hope is banished! To live when life's salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that's vanished! To endure, and go calmly on! The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. — Joanna Baillie

Life is an endless, truly endless struggle. There's no time when we're going to arrive at a plateau where the whole thing gets sorted. It's a struggle in the way every plant has to find it's own way to stand up straight. A lot of the time it's a failure. And yet it's not a failure if some enlightenment comes from it. — Arthur Miller

There is no greater love than that a man lays down his life for his neighbor. When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor. — Poemen

forgiveness. It is not in denying the hopeless days that take place when others reject us or turn on us. It is not in minimizing the pain we experience at the hands of those who seem bent on ruining our lives. People turn on people. They betray one another. Crass unkindness, vicious plottings, horrible and intentional antagonisms are shown, and calling it a hopeless day hardly describes the extended season of struggle that many of us face at times. But there is a lesson at Calvary. Forgive everyone - anyone - whom you think has failed you, hurt you, offended you. If you think they've done anything to ruin your day, ruin your life, ruin your opportunities, ruin your dreams, or block your goals - forgive them. Forgiving others is the key to living in the liberty of the freeing forgiveness Jesus has given us, and it's the first step toward finding hope for a hopeless day, not to mention opening the door to new days unimagined. — Jack W. Hayford

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

I believe that when a loved one has dementia, you experience many layers of grief.

The first wave of grief comes with the diagnosis. The realisation that the person who has supported you all your life, will no longer be able to do so, no matter how hard they try.

Grief the first time they struggle to remember your name or your relationship to each other.

Grief when you have to accept that you can no longer keep them at home.

Grief as they lose the ability to communicate, as another piece of the jigsaw is lost.

Grief every time they are afraid, agitated or confused. So much grief you don't think you can cope with anymore.

And then the overwhelming tidal wave of grief when they pass, when you would give anything to go back to the first wave of grief. — Emma Haslegrave

Here are the world's first brothers, Abel and Cain, sons of Adam and Eve. They lived when the world was young, when everything was much different than it is today. It was before the days of income tax and smog and clogged highways and the terrible problems we struggle with. Yet, despite the fact that they enjoyed what we call "the simple life," they longed for something better, they hungered after God. For no matter how good life is, it is never good enough if you do not have God. Man is never satisfied without Him, and these boys hungered for God. Both had been told the way by which they could come to Him; this is implied in the account. But Cain chose to believe a lie, the lie that is still very evident today, that "one way is as good as another." He took the way that was easiest for him to work out and as a result he was rejected; for, of course, it is always a lie that one way is as good as another. That never works in anything- nature, life, or with God. — Ray C. Stedman

These are often the children of overbearing narcissistic parents who cannot tolerate the teenager's growing need for separateness and threaten the child with psychological or actual abandonment as a punishment for exercising independence. The child considers the risks and decides prematurely to do what is expected, becoming a doctor. . .without first engaging in a journey of self-discovery. When the parents' or culture's roles and values are adopted wholesale and without examination, the process of establishing a personal identity is short-circuited. Some of these individuals rework this struggle more successfully later in life, while others are never free from the narcissistic web and only feel good when they are pleasing someone other than themselves. — Sandy Hotchkiss

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime. — Angela Davis

Adults ... struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real. — Grant Morrison

You're lying to yourself. Voron made us into serial killers. We can be okay without violence for a few weeks, but after a couple of months, the hand starts itching for the sword. You start looking for that rush. You get irritable, life turns stale, and then one day some fool crosses your path, attacks, and as you cut him down, you feel that short moment of struggle when he leverages his life against yours. If you're lucky, he's very good and the fight lasts a few seconds. But even if it doesn't, that short moment of triumph is like getting an adrenaline shot. Suddenly color comes back into life, food tastes better, sleep is deeper, and sex is rapture.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I lived it and I felt it. — Ilona Andrews

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it. — Cicely Tyson

Boy! There are times when I get the feeling that science develops things that are supposed to be good for us, but that just make trouble."

Dr. Tresselt's blue eyes seemed to throw out sparks of amusement. "I know how you feel, Joe," he said. "But my stars, boy, nobody can be alive and never have any trouble! Being alive is just meeting troubles every day and overcoming them. Just to stand up straight against the pull of gravity is a fight, isn't it? — Jay Williams

There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The tattoo artist inflicts pain and I take it. With each breath I count to one again. Each inhale, each exhale, time passes in the smallest of pieces, and pieces still smaller than those.
This is how you count a life. This is how you go through it. Each second of hurt is a second that's already passed, one you never have to go through again. I have counted in pieces that small, when walking from the bed to the fridge seemed an insurmountable goal. I have counted my breaths, my steps, my eye-blinks, my hiccups, the tiny pulse in my thumb. And when I started getting tattooed, two of the things I used to need were gone: to write on myself, and to find irrelevant things to count. A second of intense pain is the most profound thing you can live through. And another, and another, and another, and then you know what it is to feel, and to struggle through that feeling one small agonizing increment at a time, and if you know that, you know what it is to live with mental illness. — Stacy Pershall

It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one's own body ... On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth. — George Orwell

On one hand, prostitutes don't struggle because it's simply their life. In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life. In Bangladesh it's different because they live in the brothel, it's sort of a prison, but still there are two sides. When they think of their religion and their upbringing, they can be very moralistic. They're moralistic about giving blow jobs. On the other hand, they have an everyday life where there's no room for shame. — Michael Glawogger

There is an island fantasy A "Someday I'll," we'll never see When recession stops, inflation ceases Our mortgage is paid, our pay increases That Someday I'll where problems end Where every piece of mail is from a friend Where the children are sweet and already grown ... Most unhappy people ... put happiness on "law away" And struggle through a blue today ... Life's most important revelation Is that the journey means more than the destination ... — Denis Waitley

According to Islam, whenever we are struck by illness or misfortune or someone hurts us, there is a higher purpose behind it, which we may not understand at the time,' one of them said to me. 'That's where trust comes in. Through suffering, God helps us to better ourselves and make good our mistakes. It is a form of purification and also God's way of testing the strength of our faith and the goodness of our character.' Another lady suggested I look on the bright side.

'Suffering draws us closer to God and that is our aim in life,' she said. Then she quoted Rumi who had said, 'It is pain that draws man to his Lord, because when he is well, he doesn't remember the Lord.' I tried to look at the positive and believe that there was a higher, spiritual perspective on what I had just been through, and all the advice I was given helped me a lot. But it took quite a while for my heart to catch up with my mind. — Kristiane Backer

There's a theory that says that life is based on a competition and the struggle and the fight for survival, and it's interesting because when you look at the fractal character of evolution, it's totally different. It's based on cooperation among the elements in the geometry and not competition. — Bruce Lipton

Only when life is quiet, Empress," Oli said. "When the battle comes our way or we see a need, we will pick up our swords and fight beside the bravest of men, even knowing we may fall. But once all is well again... that's when the darkness comes. Then we sit in silence and struggle to grasp our peace the best we can. — Jill Williamson

Life's hard and when you know there are ways to drown it out, it's hard to stay on the right path. It's a constant struggle. For a long time, I did it by myself. — Lisa De Jong

That's one of the coolest things about being a racecar driver. Even if its one tweet a day, the platform allows me the opportunity to change someone's life. That's what we're here for. When we're struggling on the track, I try to take myself out of the situation and realize how small these earthly problems are. I love being able to spread the Word. That's my main purpose in life. Driving in NASCAR is icing on the cake. — Tanner Berryhill

When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: "This is for my benefit. — Chris Prentiss

Over the years, I've found that I either live life or write about it. I can't seem to do both simultaneously - I have to do it sequentially. When I write incessantly, I lose touch with the issues and passions that fuel the work. But when I get too involved in organizations or movement endeavors, I almost forget that I'm a writer. It's a constant struggle to find a balance between these two worlds - the solitary writing life and the life of a social justice activist. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

It's hard to explain. I mean ... I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. When we were young, things were so much simpler ... You have to understand that I'm not the girl I used to be. I'm a wide and a mother now, and like everyone else I am not perfect. I struggle with the choices I've made and I make mistakes, and half the time I wonder who I really am or what I'm doing or whether my life means anything at all. I'm not special at all, and you need to know that. You have to understand that I'm just ... ordinary. — Nicholas Sparks

Preachers and counselors can spend their energy exhorting people to change their behavior. But the human will is not a free entity. It is bound to a person's understanding. People will do what they believe. Rather than making a concerted effort to influence choices, preachers first need to be influencing minds. When a person understands who Christ is, on what basis he is worthwhile, and what life is all about, he has the formulation necessary for any sustained change in lifestyle. Christians who try to "live right" without correcting a wrong understanding about how to meet personal needs will always labor and struggle with Christianity, grinding out their responsible duty in a joyless, strained fashion. Christ taught that when we know the truth, we can be set free. We now are free to choose the life of obedience because we understand that in Christ we now are worthwhile persons. We are free to express our gratitude in the worship and service of the One who has met our needs. — Larry Crabb

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. — Atul Gawande

We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashing of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with the same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke a thought aloud, 'Why doesn't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrads, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile. — Ernest Lawrence

In times of struggle, there are as many reasons not to read as there are to breathe. Don't you have bigger things to do? Reading, let alone re-reading, is the terrain of milquetoasts and mopey spinsters. At life's ugliest junctures the very act of opening a book can smack of cowardly escapism. Who chooses to read when there's work to be done?

Call me a coward if you will, but when the line between duty and sanity blurs, you can usually find me curled up with a battered book, reading as if my mental health depended on it. And it does, for inside the books I love I find food, respite, escape, and perspective. — Erin Blakemore

No matter the border, the Mekong has been an indiscriminate giver and taker of life in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It's a paradox like civilization's other great rivers - be it the Nile, Indus, Euphrates, Ganges or China's Sorrow the Huang He - for without its waters life is a daily struggle for survival; yet with its waters life is a daily bet that natural disasters and diseases will visit someone else's village, because it's not if, but when it's going to happen that's the relevant question. — Tucker Elliot

As a child, rain meant endless amusement; in youth it meant romance; in middle-age, nothing mattered except the struggle of everyday living; but it was in the last leg of one's life when the rains assumed their sinister avatar. Thimma — Anand Neelakantan

When I throw back my head and howl
People (women mostly) say
But you've always done what you want,
You always get your way
- A perfectly vile and foul
Inversion of all that's been.
What the old ratbags mean
Is I've never done what I don't.

So the shit in the shuttered chateau
Who does his five hundred words
Then parts out the rest of the day
Between bathing and booze and birds
Is far off as ever, but so
Is that spectacled schoolteaching sod
(Six kids, and the wife in pod,
And her parents coming to stay)...

Life is an immobile, locked,
Three-handed struggle between
Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)
The unbeatable slow machine
That brings what you'll get. Blocked,
They strain round a hollow stasis
Of havings-to, fear, faces.
Days sift down it constantly. Years.

--The Life with the Hole in It — Philip Larkin

The paths that lead to the crossroads of life; otherwise known as "transition", seem the longest, and darkest. This is a result of the tension present between struggle and grace. The more you resist, the more anxiety and stress you will encounter. Whereas, when you let go of the expectation of where you should be, or want to be, and accept the current situation, event, or circumstance, to merely exist, you will experience God's sufficient Grace. — Deborah Brodie

I want to go somewhere good when I read, not into someone else's crappy life." "Good lives aren't worth reading about," he argues. "I read about the struggle. Other people's growing pains." "I like happy endings," I say. "Real life never has a happy ending." "God, you're depressing. I don't know why we're friends. — Tarryn Fisher

A man depends largely on woman for the light in the family as he is not well equipped at finding meaning for himself. Life is often dry and barren for him unless someone bestows meaning on life for him. With a few words, a woman can give meaning to a whole day's struggle and a man will be so grateful. A man knows and wants this; he will edge up to it, initiate little occasions so that a woman can shed some light for him. When he comes home and recounts the events of the day, he is asking her to bestow meaning on them. This is the light-bearing quality of a woman. — Robert A. Johnson

It's funny how you never know how much you can handle until it gets worse. And just when you get used to that, it happens again. But somehow, even with this experience you find a way to make it work because that is how you cope. Not because you deserve it or because you need the experience to set priorities, but because it's the human thing and it is life. And through this experience we will grow, find out what the holiday means and learn to expect more of each other. Together we will use this struggle to make us stronger as a family and support each other when we break down. That is what a family does and how we cope. — Brooke Desserich

When I saw them on the beach, perfectly tanned, or when I watched them twirling in the waves, I grasped the transcendental element in surf music. It was all about freedom from the rules of life, the whole of your being concentrated in the act of shooting the tube. For several years after that trip to L.A. I subscribed to Surfer magazine, and I practiced the Atlantic Ocean version of the sport, though only with my body and on rather tame waves. With my voice muffled by the water I would shout a line from "Surf City." To me, this was the ultimate fantasy of plenty: "two girls for every boy," except I sang it as "Two girls for every goy." Fortunately, Brian has survived the schizoid tendencies that seemed close to the surface when I met him. He's still performing and writing songs. But it was his emotional battle and the intersection of that struggle with the acid-dosed aesthetic of the sixties that produced his most astonishing music. — Richard Goldstein

On the hills and in the valleys and along swampy shores, hunters hunt wolves, deer, and wild ducks. Let us hate them, not because they kill but because they enjoy themselves.
May our facial expression consist of a wan smile, like that of someone who's about to cry, a far-away gaze, like that of someone who doesn't want to see, and a disdain in all its features, as when someone despises life and lives only to despise it.
And may our disdain be for those who work and struggle, and our hatred for those who hope and trust. — Fernando Pessoa

This must surely be one of the most astounding documents ever presented to an Ally when engaged in a life and death struggle. For it imposed what was really a veto on the best opportunity of cutting the common enemy's life-line and of protecting our own." By acquiescing to such an outrage, Liddell Hart contended, the British General Staff were essentially "accessories to the crime," that crime being that the British in Egypt had now been given no alternative but to await another assault on the Suez Canal, and to then launch their own attack against the very strongest point of the Turkish line - the narrow front of southern Palestine - an approach that was to ultimately cost them fifty thousand more casualties. — Scott Anderson

What is happiness? What is a good life? Is it a life without suffering? Something like that doesn't exist ... Life is filled with suffering and sorrow. So it's no wonder that to those who fear suffering, the world seems like a living hell! And still ... those who bravely keep going and try to push through this hell ... They'll find that it's only a small stretch of the road to happiness. The truly great are those who never lose hope, even when thrown into hell ... And as long as we have faith in ourselves, even hell itself can be a paradise! — Naoyuki Ochiai

My mentor, [Ingmar] Bergman, when we worked on stage, he said you can't convince a thousand people at the big stage where we were working. You can't convince everybody, but just pick one every night that you perform for and make sure that he or she will have an experience that alters their life in a more positive way. So, just one every night. That's worth all the struggle and screaming. — Peter Stormare

When we return to our breathing, we return to the present moment, our true home. There's no need for us to struggle to arrive somewhere else. We know our final destination is the cemetery. Why are we in a hurry to get there? Why not step in the direction of life, which is in the present moment? — Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm a big John Steinbeck fan. Cormac McCarthy. I've always loved the stories of regular people. Mark Twain, too. When you look back at some of the epic writers of our country's history, very rarely do you find upper-class royalty. We seem to delve into the struggle of life and the labor of life much more frequently. — Lucas Neff

Only a handful of Germans in the Reich had the slightest conception of the eternal and merciless struggle for the German language, German schools, and a German way of life. Only today, when the same deplorable misery is forced on many millions of Germans from the Reich, who under foreign rule dream of their common fatherland and strive, amid their longing, at least to preserve their holy right to their mother tongue, do wider circles understand what it means to be forced to fight for one's nationality. — Adolf Hitler

She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments. — Leo Tolstoy

When you have a command over your thoughts and how they are creating, you are the center of your creation. When you put your responsibility outside of yourself and subject yourself as a victim of the universe, you are disempowered and are going to struggle. Live life free and responsibly. Then you will align with your soul's love. It is a matter of acknowledging your power and truly living it. — Jason Nelson

In a sense, one could speak of the secret life of colour. Despite its outward beckoning, like true beauty, colour is immensely hesitant in giving away its secrets. Painters learn to respect the hesitancy of colour and endeavour to refine their skill to become worthy of its revelations. A painter learns the language of colour slowly. As with any language, you struggle for a long time outside the language. There is a willed deliberateness to how you sequence the strange words to make a sentence.Then one day the language lets you in to where the words dance to your thoughts with ease and fluency. Perhaps for the painter there is a day when colour lets him in, when his palette sings with synergy and delight. — John O'Donohue

Every struggle, whether won or lost, strengthens us for the next to come. It is not good for people to have an easy life. They become weak and inefficient when they cease to struggle. Some need a series of defeats before developing the strength and courage to win a victory. — Victorio

One thing is for sure. Nothing in life is easy or certain. You'll be fighting until the end. And when you've overcome all chaos has to offer, those who had it easy will struggle. By fighting through it, you are giving yourself a skill some just do not have. When the world, and the realm, erupt into chaos, you'll be the one standing with a sword still in your hand. Be proud of yourself. You're more of a warrior than you know. — Lori Goodwin

Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they walk into the room. Everybody wants that. It's easy to want that. A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, "What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?" Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. For — Mark Manson

You have to be determined on your quest for the fulfilment you need, and while you struggle, living and searching, carry a determined face, heart and spirit more than your inner perseverance.
When you're earnestly searching for a job or something valuable in thriving on this life, let determination be your mindset. Have that creativity, resourceful spirit, inquisitive behaviour and resilience matching your gut to succeed in your search. — Angelica Hopes

Softly and kindly remind yourself, 'I cannot own anything.' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough? If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything. — Wayne Dyer

[ ... ] the struggle of our lives was not a sign that there was still life. If you stopped struggling, that's when you needed to be worried. The fight meant that God was helping you keep going one more day even if you didn't thik you coould make it. — Chris Fabry

We choose this. This place. This life. What it will be, and how we live it. We are not slaves to gods, or fate, or destinies woven in veils of smoke. We choose the people we want to be, and we choose the shape of the world in which we live. Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice. There is nothing so easy as swimming with the current, nothing so difficult as being the first to stand up. To say no. To point at a thing wrong and name it so. There are none so brave as those who choose to stand, when all others are content to kneel. None so worthy of the title 'hero' as those who fight when there are none to see it. Who choose a life bereft of accolade or fanfare, a life of struggle for the idea that we are all the same. Every one of us. And every one of us has the right to be happy. To know peace. To know love. — Jay Kristoff

Kovacs to a female believer in New Revelation: ..I'm calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband's angle, he's a man, he's got everything to gain from this crapshit. But you? You've thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You'll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it's soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you'll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we've won for ourselves to come back and try again. You'll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you'll condemn her to the same fucking thing — Richard K. Morgan

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold?
The tree says to the leaf:
That's the cycle of life. You may think you're going to die, but you live on in me. It's thanks to you that I'm alive, because I can breathe. It's also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing. — Paulo Coelho

Between the natural way and the path of grace there is a deep abyss. It is in that gap that we live our lives as a giant struggle between good and evil, Satan and God, despair and love. Whenever despair wins, it is the natural way. Whenever love wins, it is a moment of grace. When love is victorious and defeats despair completely, you've reached the path of grace. — Haim Shapira

It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity. — Criss Jami

Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of hope and exaltation. — Whittaker Chambers

Relationships are a development and a dance between our inner male and female sides. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, destructivity and a separation from life.
A one-sided development of our female side leads to dependence and passivity. It is when we have developed a balance and harmony between both our male and female side that a new spark of joy, creativity and wholeness arises within ourselves. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. — Blaise Pascal

From the hour when the Puritan baby opened his eyes in bleak New England, he had a Spartan struggle for life. — Alice Morse Earle

My simple point is that I judge a person's faith by how they live their life, not by the tenets of their religion. I've watched the holiest of people walk past somebody in need or treat their staff mean. To me, the beauty of faith is only seen when people live it consistently or struggle to do so. — Cory Booker

Those who are truly alive are kindly and unsuspecting in their human relationships and consequently endangered under present conditions. They assume that others think and act generously, kindly and helpfully, in accordance with the laws of life. This natural attitude, fundamental to healthy children as well as primitive man, inevitably represents a great danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as the emotional plague subsists, because the plague-ridden impute their own manner of thinking and acting to their fellow men. A kindly man believes that all men are kindly, while one infected with the plague believes that all men lie and cheat and are hungry for power. In such a situation, the living are at an obvious disadvantage. When they give to the plague-ridden they are sucked dry, then ridiculed or betrayed. — Wilhelm Reich

My father died when I was 10; my sister got polio a couple of years later and was paralyzed. So there I was - my sister in a wheel chair, my father gone, and my mother a quiet little mouse. You see, it was the '30s in the South, so my mother was not prepared to cope. So I was scared to death. And being that scared, everything afterward became a struggle not to go down the drain. Struggling became a way of life for me. — Helen Gurley Brown

Balance is everything. And I'm not just speaking from a road perspective - even from home. My wife and I work out of the house and we always struggle to find that balance because when work is around you 24/7, it's easy to neglect the little things in life that really help us to rejuvenate or heal. — Chuck Ragan

There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything - millions of dollars, mansions, cars, nice clothes, beautiful women, and every other materialistic thing you can imagine. Now I struggle for peace. — Richard Pryor

Most believers struggle to really believe in the supernatural as a meaningful, deterministic reality except during moments when they are drawn to it, perhaps during a worship service or while reading a novel like 'Adam.' Being drawn to this truth is the first step to living a life in accordance to this truth. — Ted Dekker

We were really poor when I was growing up; my parents, both artists, were bohemians. Life was a desperate struggle, but in service of a high ideal, which is exactly what my photographs are about. — Justine Kurland

As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action. — Eckhart Tolle

Larry is like a son to me and we enjoy a most wonderful relationship, one with meaning, dignity, pride, understanding and purpose. But more importantly, one of mutual respect. Larry and I both pride ourselves on being men of our word and when we say we will be together for life it is not just convention but is said with feeling and commitment that comes from struggling together, growing together and being family. — Don King

Don't change yourself for anyone, you may struggle a lot to do so...
When you are completely changed, people wants the old one to get back again, which would be a difficult task ever for you... — Giridhar Alwar

There are times when life seems like a struggle where the only reward you get for hanging on is the chance to struggle some more. — Michael Marshall Smith

The man who boldly transgresses, amassing a great heap unjustly
by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble seizes him as the yardarm is splintered. He calls on those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters. The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen. — Aeschylus

Happiness isn't the reward we retrieve after a long struggle. It arrives daily, in those clear moments when our hearts are tender, pricked by the embrace of a loved one, the beauty of a single flower, the majesty of the world in which we are central. Look over your shoulder at how far you've come and all the good things you've experienced and that is when you will see the smiling face of happiness. — Toni Sorenson

When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world. — Ramakrishna

(visions) of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks flecked with the afternoon sunshine through the boughs: I was in the midst of such scenes, and in all of them one presence seemed to weigh on me in all these mighty shapes - the presence of something unknown and pitiless. For continual suffering had annihilated religious faith within me: to the utterly miserable - the unloving and the unloved - there is no religion possible, no worship but a worship of devils. And beyond all these, and continually recurring, was the vision of my death - the pangs, the suffocation, the last struggle, when life would be grasped at in vain. ("The Lifted Veil") — George Eliot

I read about guerrilla warfare and clandestine struggle without having the faintest idea that one day i would go underground. It's kind of funny when i think about it, because reading all that stuff probably has saved my life a million times. — Assata Shakur

One way we could describe the struggle of life would be to say it is a battle between agency and addiction. Agency is our power to choose, and addiction is what happens when we have lost that power and we are controlled by something else. — John Bytheway

His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink. — William Golding

When you've spent your whole life not being good enough, it takes time to let yourself believe that you finally are. Self-worth isn't a switch that flips inside you. It's a daily struggle not to sabotage your own success. Not to cave into the voices inside your head that whisper you're not good enough, or you'll fuck things up, or that someone else could do things better than you. — Julie Johnson

But the fantasy kingdom and trappings of success soon lost their luster, as I discovered that the most prestigious and remunerative of my resume's way stations was also the most tedious and unfulfilling I had ever experienced. This paradox only made me more morose about modernity. Why was I going to watch my hairline recede in front of two-thousand-line spreadsheets staring at me from cold, glowing monitors? Why was everyone in my office apparently so happy to be spending so many hours there, when the things they really cared about - people, pets, pastimes - were all relegated to a few photographs on their desks? That seemed to be the formula: spend the best years of your life in an office with photos of what you really care about. — Zack Love

But there's quality behind Dustin's eyes when he talks, a dimness, like the slow fade of a dying flashlight. Like someone forgot to replace the batteries in Dustin's face. This kind of emptiness can only be filled with heartache and struggle and I-don't-know-what...the enormity of things. The shit-stink of life. And neither the enormity nor the shit-stink can be found in a pancake breakfast. Pain is what matters. — David Arnold

When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future. — Queen Elizabeth II